With the changing generations, historians alter their interpretations of past events. Historian Francis Parkman, writing in the 18505, thought of the westward movement in the U.S. as the story of man's impact on nature. Frederick J. Turner, writing 50 years later, saw pioneering as the origin of U.S. individualism. A modern U.S. historian, Columbia University's Allan J. Nevins (The Ordeal of the Union), speaking in Dearborn, Mich, to the Society of American Archivists, discussed some added meanings of the modern era in U.S. history"the emergence of America to the leadership of the Western world." Said Historian Nevins:
"My own guess...